Had a nice ride in this morning. Temps in the lower 40s with lots of traffic out, most I have seen this week so far. I made pretty good time but was very sweaty when I arrived at work. Should be in the mid to upper 70s for the ride home.

Great springtime weather we're having in Vermont. Yesterday was my innaugural ride in the Budvar Budweiser jersey I got in Prague a couple of weeks ago. I think it made me faster, because I was chasing down unsuspecting pleasure cyclists like a madman. :)

Waiting for a red light (in the Budvar jersey), a carload of coeds went by, and started tooting their car horn. The women on my side leaned out their windows and started waving and giggling. :o

This morning I spotted a blue heron wading around in some flooded land near the lake, and swimming past it was a cormorant (bird). I'm not sure what food they're trying to find. Frogs, maybe?

A woman was walking her bicycle through the same area and I said, "Problems?" She said, "No. Just looking for birds!"

Ahhh, nice and warm this morning (9 C), so I didn't even need my full-finger gloves. However, I did need to ride my DF Trek today, because it has fenders (and my trike doesn't). They're calling for rain, and I don't like getting wet from the bottom as well as the top...

Nice ride in today! I Finally spotted the new bike shop on Comm.Ave (Landry's) so I'll need to pop in one day to check things out. I live a mere 3.31mi from home, but I've been taking the 20mi route home as my first century is fast approaching. The "Bike Room" is starting to fill up again unfortuanately. There should be reserved parking for those who commuted all winter...myself and a few others.

I just paid for another year of secure, heated underground bike parking. 1/6 the price of a bus pass per month, 2.6% of the cost of car parking. As a bonus, I'm HHCMF! :D

The ride today was uneventful, although I almost got taken out by a van that was trying to avoid another van. I was just standing behind a truck, waiting at a red light, and whoosh, I feel the presence of this van come up right beside me. I was lucky to be standing in the middle of my lane, or I would have been tapped for sure.

My rides to and from work this week have been very pleasant, but generally uneventful, except for coming home yesterday evening.

Coming through Downtown DC on a busy street that I usually take, there was a guy standing in the street, well past the parked cars and mostly across the right-most traffic lane, with his arm outstretched trying to hail a cab. I normally don't sweat these things; but he was (perhaps unwisely) pretty far out there, and it's really a pretty busy street...

I'm normally not very confrontational, and I'm not sure what got into me, but I just couldn't resist doing something. So, as I passed him, I slowed down and very lightly "high fived" his outstretched hand. He was pretty surprised and said "whaaaa-uuuh-oooh-aaaah," or something like that. I then sped back up, quietly giggled to myself, and kept riding.

Maybe it's not really very funny and I shouldn't have done that (I mean, I did startle him...), and maybe I wasn't really advancing the cause of cyclist-pedestrian goodwill (and I normally give peds a lot of leeway, especially during tourist season); but I did get a strange satisfaction out of it. Oh well, anyway, I just thought I'd share that with everyone.

Great ride home yesterday, did 20 miles cuz the weather was SOOO nice, 75, with just a hint of a breeze.

About halfway home (on the uphill section) I had to stop to wait for traffic to clear before I could cross a street, had to wait for almost a full minute as it's a very busy street, while I was waiting a "fair weather rider" pulled up and edged ahead of me. He gave me a friendly but business like "hello" and from his fancy Campy LeMond to his $70 Pearl jesey to his gyro helmet to his fish white legs he screamed "I only ride when it's nice and because I have lots of money, but I think I'm really fast"

Sure enough when traffic cleared he darted out like he was somebody and tried to pull away. With my 20 pound backpack on I paced him for about a half mile, getting a good draft, then at the base of a long straight. I pulled out and went around him upshifted after I came over, and kept crankin. I never looked back, heard him for a while, then he dropped. After about a mile or so I think he turned off, cuz when i had to stop to cross another street he was gone.

Me and my 10 year old 8 speed Trek with year round conditioning OWNED him :-)

I still feel good about the punishment I delt out :-) I wasn't able to ride in today, have to meet my wife and father-in-law right after work for his birthday dinner.

:D I don't know why, but I think this is hilarious. ;)

Kind of reminds me of the time my friend was running a marathon and passed what he thought was a guy giving out cups of water, so he grabbed the cup. Well it was just a spectator standing there holding a gin & tonic. :p

Its funny when people think they can span the distance of a 6 lane wide road while you're crossing in front of htem.

Ha ha... Just what you need while running a marathon! ;)

Nice day, but traffic is getting heavier and heavier.

G&T on the run. Nice.

I remember reading about the early days of the Ironman Tri where some guy looked at the ingredients of Bud Light and figured it would make a great sports drink. Water and carbohydrates, right? He drank a couple of cans on the bike and shortly thereafter rode into a parked car.

Great weather this morning. I got a quick reminder of what "cool" morning temps (only 52F) feel like on freshly shaved legs without knee or leg warmers. :eek: Wasn't bad after 2 or 3 miles.


Spring is finally here. Supposed to be in the 80s this weekend. Whoa! That's not spring!
Maybe it's just a warm front headed this way. :o

Isn't that feeling great though, minus the shaved legs of course. But its nice to go out riding when its freezing cold and then slowly warm up after a few miles.

Nice commute in this morning, sunny, breezy, warm (50F). I rode my folder today, took the long way in, long cruise at lunch (67F) and I'll probably take the long way home. This weather is great!!!

I love this thread :)
 

Enjoying commuting vicariously through you all. I didn't communte today. I've got a buncha errands to do before the weekend. Leaving Friday with about 20 of my ridin' pals for a Road Trip to Ocala Florida to ride the Santos Mtn Bike Trail. http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/cfg/default.htm
WOO-HOO! SANTOS! http://www.omba.org/
Happy Holidays to those celebrating and Happy Trails as well to those otherwise :)

flat rear tire at clock-out time :-( , nice rides though each way!

great ride in this am. steady breeze at my back, combined with less clothing on and less stuff to carry, and narrower profile slicks instead of studded snow tires made me feel like I was flying in today.

Inspiring sight of the day: As I round a quiet section of the bike path I look up ahead and there is this lithe young woman with a dancers body and grace running with a delicate elegance down the path. As I get closer it looks like she is wearing some kind of stocking from the knee down when I suddenly see that she is running on prosthetics. They were simple, metal, I believe, shaped like shallow "C's". I was full of admiration for the incredibly artistic design of the prosthesis and it's obvious practical application. But the most admiration was certainly due to the athlete, who looked incredibly fit, capable and courageous.

Pushed hard on the way home. head wind again in Brighton- really made me work.

First of all, I feel like an idiot.
I was riding through a roundabout and noticed a strange clicking from my cranks. Then at 10 miles an hr I ran into a curb and aimed for the softest piece of concrete. The end result for my bike was a slightly out of wack front tire and one little scrape on a crank. I did not fair as well. Several inches of road rash on one leg and a sprained wrist. I'm typing one handed.
The cool thing was that the damage was so minor my LBS fixed it free of charge. Awesome place.
Incidentally, the clicking was caused by the cadence sensor on my crank hitting one of my other sensors. That was really worth the pain. :(
Anyhow, the lesson I take from this is always pay attention.

3 bad commuting days in a row. :(
Friday: stupid encounter with moronic SUV driver
Tuesday: Discovered I was still lactose intolerant in the middle of a park with closed restrooms. Thank god for port a potties.
Wed: Attemped to kill self.

ugh

Too bad tomorrow is massage day. I would think about calling in sick if it wasn't. If my wrist feels ok I'm going to bike in tomorrow. Probably a shorter distance.

today was my day off so no commute, but I rode back from my parents house (about 4 miles one way) and then around town... the ride was a lot of fun and no problems other than someone going at a stopsign when I had the right of way at one point.

today was good... even though it was 91 degrees on the way home. not bad though because..... yeah, it's a dry heat. and lots of shade along my route. and a headwind I was happy to have. I saw 10+ commuters/students/leisure riders but some of them were riding on the wrong side of the street ... at least they were in the bike lane. I got my new handlebars today, yay! :)

The commute was the same as always The scenery is nothing to write about; the trafffic is fast. I see no other bike commuters, EVER. The biking pleasure is why I do it. Todaythough I I enjoyed some of the visual fruits of my wife's labors in the garden when I got home.

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/9...odil5sc.th.jpg

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1...olia5bh.th.jpg

Hard day at work. Good ride to work and home .
Have a good nite .

So last night I was thinking that I may have not brought blue jeans in to wear for tomorrow. Figured I would just carry a pair in anyway just in case.

Today was nice. got to reduce the clothing for a 45 degree ride in. As such I didn't bring the jeans because I was working on switching clothes before I left.

Sure enough! No jeans. I am now wearing a collared button up shirt (blue-grey striped) with a pair of red nylon wind breaker pants. To finish it off, a black pair of saftey boots.

So far I have gotten the following comments. "Christmas came early this year?", "Nice pants". It will be a interesting day :)

The ride was great yesterday afternoon -- with two exceptions. On two occasions some fool cager decided that driving with a cyclist anywhere in sight wasn't safe, I guess.
I'd been riding behind a woman in a Toyota Corolla for about 1.5 bolcks. Wasn't following too close or anything but she kept watching me in her mirror. Suddenly, in the middle of the block she stopped and waved for me to pass her. So I did. Then she followed me until she turned a few blocks later.

Later in the ride another cager decided he didn't want to be near a cyclist and shot past me like the Concorde. When he was a block ahead of me he slowed down.

Why are so many drivers such @$$holes???